By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – More than 12 years after the fact, a state court has found that a Potsdam auto dealer was the victim of malicious prosecution and false arrest due to police misconduct in a case of reporting of odometer readings in the cars he was selling.

Cornelius “Con” Mahoney of Mahoney’s Auto Mall, 7513 U.S. Rt. 11, is suing for millions of dollars in damages. His suit was originally filed shortly after dozens of felony charges made against him were thrown out by local courts in 2004.

A member of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, James DiSalvo, was cited in the ruling for pursuing Mahoney even after the charges against the auto dealer were shown to be baseless. Judge Nicholas V. Midey, Jr., based in Syracuse, ruled the “State is 100% liable to Mr. Mahoney on his malicious prosecution and false arrest causes of action with respect to the third and fourth sets of criminal charges.”

At the same time, the ruling noted Mahoney brought many of the troubles on himself by devising an odometer reporting form on letterhead that looked as though it was from the defunct company that had been calculating the readings for the dealership.

The verdict, filed in September after a trial in New York State Court of Claims, is only the first part of the outcome of the case. It assigned liability to the state for malicious prosecution and false arrest against Mahoney. The second phase will begin later at a trial to determine actual damages.

The case began in 2001, according to court documents, when the dealership was notified by a telephone call from the Canton Department of Motor Vehicles office that there was a new requirement for a new form detailing the conversion of odometer readings from kilometers to miles in used cars that Mahoney was importing from Canada for sale here.

Erin Hayes, Mahoney’s daughter and an employee at the dealership, told the court that no form was specified by DMV, other than that it had to be on letterhead.

Since a firm that had been providing the conversion service had gone out of business without providing the odometer statements for several cars, her father told her to devise letterhead looking like that of the defunct company to send to the DMV with other registration documents.

Hayes testified that she submitted about 50 such documents, with what she believed was accurate information. That, the court said, was where Mahoney went wrong and left himself open to accusations of forgery.

An investigation was begun by state police in 2003 after an investigator in the Odometer Complaint Unit at DMV in Albany called them to relay a complaint from a Mahoney’s customer.

BCI Investigator James DiSalvo and Trooper David Hammond, Jr. soon brought charges against Mahoney including several counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, a felony.

But the court noted DiSalvo had been advised, after two rounds of charges against Mahoney but before two more rounds of charges, that the Albany DMV investigator discovered that there was no rule or regulation requiring an odometer conversion document.

Several other factors were noted in the suit indicating a possible pattern of harassment of Mahoney, including testimony that DiSalvo made a complaint to the Department of Environmental Conservation of an oil spill at the dealership, but no spill was found by DEC.

Mahoney showed the court that as the charges rolled in and were publicized in 2003, his business declined from 500 to 600 car sales per year to 97 cars in 2004. He also said that while the charges were pending, Honda terminated the dealership arrangement they had with Mahoney.

His suit claims damages as the result of the prosecution, defamation of himself and his businesses, and other claims.

The complete verdict including testimony cited by witnesses can be viewed at http://vertumnus.courts.state.ny.us/claims/search/display.html?terms=&url=/claims/html/2015-009-100.html.